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Dessert

Neapolitan Cake

A layered cake with a dark molasses and coffee mixture and a white butter-sugar mixture, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Neapolitan Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the dark batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, cream together brown sugar and ½ cup butter. Stir in molasses and strong coffee.

  3. Add flour, raisins, currants, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg; mix well.

Make the light batter

  1. In another bowl, cream together white sugar and ½ cup butter.

  2. Add milk, flour, corn starch, egg whites, and baking powder; mix until smooth.

Bake and cool

  1. Layer the dark and white mixtures in a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  3. Let cool before frosting.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Coffee + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together895 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped or beaten proteins that add lift and a light, airy crumb to the white layer.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness and the dark color of the spiced layer.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic coffee and molasses to produce gas that helps the dark layer rise.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to lift the light layer.
Corn starch
Softens the crumb and makes the white layer more tender than flour alone.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, molasses, coffee, flour, raisin, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, molasses, coffee, flour, raisin, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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